


Sun

by remanth



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kid!Lock, Solar System, sun - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remanth/pseuds/remanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's teacher tries to explain that the Earth revolves around the sun, as does all the other planets in the solar system. But Sherlock couldn't care less about what revolved around what.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun

“All right, class. Today we’re going to learn about the solar system,” Mrs. White said cheerfully to the group of nine year olds in her class. The reaction was pretty much as she expected: a few kids looked interested while others were sighing at yet another new thing to cram into their young minds. Of course, one child had a completely atypical reaction though Mrs. White was learning how he would react to most things. Young Sherlock Holmes merely rolled his eyes and muttered “Bored” under his breath. He wasn’t as quiet as he thought and she was able to hear him clearly. The first time the boy had done that, Mrs. White had been shocked to say the least. But Sherlock was her most intelligent pupil and she could understand why he found class boring. Most of the time, the precocious nine year old had already learned what she was teaching. In order to keep him interested, Mrs. White had tried to find different things to peak Sherlock’s interest or new things for him to learn while her other students worked on their own coursework.

“We’re going to start with the sun,” Mrs. White continued, smiling at her class. The solar system and space were probably her favorite parts of the science section. “All the planets in our solar system revolve around the sun and Earth would be lifeless without it. The sun provides heat and light, allowing life to survive here.”

“Why is the sun bright?” one of the girls asked, raising her hand as she spoke. “What’s it made of?”

“The sun is made up of several gases that burn,” Mrs. White replied, writing a page number on the board. There was the rustling of paper as all the children flipped open their science textbooks to look at the picture there. The sun was displayed in a cross-cut, each level named. “The outer surface of the sun is the coolest part but still burns really hot. The deeper you get towards the core, the hotter the sun becomes.”

“If it’s always burning, why do we have night?” one of the boys asked, face screwed up in an extremely confused face. “Where does the sun go?”

“The Earth is spinning at the same time it’s revolving around the sun,” Mrs. White explained, turning to draw on the board. She started with the sun and drew dots for the other planets and then drew rings around the sun to show the planets’ orbits. “That’s why we have night and day. As the Earth goes around the sun, we get seasons because the axis of the Earth isn’t perfectly straight. We’re actually tipped slightly so, during winter, our part of the Earth is further away from the sun. During summer, we’re closer so it’s warmer.”

She continued with the lesson, explaining each planet and what conditions were like on it. All the students, minus Sherlock of course, were impressed with the fact that Mercury was the hottest and travelled the fastest around the sun while Pluto took a couple hundred years to revolve around the sun once. Towards the end of the lesson, when she was describing the moons of Saturn and that some might even have water on them, Sherlock even started to look somewhat interested. Mrs. White noted that and reminded herself to print out some articles about Saturn and it’s moons. Perhaps Sherlock would become more interested in the solar system as a whole when he saw the wonders that existed out there.

After science came lunch and all the students rushed out of the building for recess. Mrs. White wiped the chalkboard clean and sat down at her desk for a twenty minute break. She wasn’t one of the teachers assigned to chaperone the students today and a rest was greatly appreciated right now. Small footsteps interrupted her, though, and Sherlock edged back into the classroom. He glanced at the board and saw that it had been erased. Sighing, Sherlock turned to leave but Mrs. White called him back.

“What are you looking for, Sherlock?” she asked, gesturing the boy to come up to her desk.

“I wanted to know more about Saturn,” Sherlock replied quietly, glancing back at the chalkboard. “The rings were interesting and I was wondering what they were made of.”

“I was just about to look up more information about Saturn for you,” Mrs. White said, smiling at the excited look that Sherlock turned to her. “Why don’t you go out and play and I’ll print out a few things for you?”

“I’d... I’d rather stay here,” Sherlock mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. It wasn’t a gesture of aggression, more a comfort to himself. “The other children are boring. They just play silly games and run around screaming. Or they make fun of my deductions.”

Mrs. White nodded sympathetically, sad at how the other children often treated Sherlock. He was different, he was frighteningly intelligent, and he had no idea how to relate to any of the others. And, in the tradition of children everywhere no matter how hard the teachers tried to stop it, they ridiculed what they didn’t understand. It made for a very lonely existence for the little boy who saw the world in a strangely acute way. Instead of trying to convince Sherlock to head back outside, Mrs. White just gestured at the chair that sat next to her desk. Sherlock sat down in it gratefully, staring with interest at her computer screen. There was a picture of Saturn with its rings, several moons up in the background. They spent recess looking up different facts about Saturn and its rings and moons. When the children thundered back into the classroom laughing, Sherlock was already back in his seat eating a sandwich and poring over one of the printed pages he’d been given. Lunch for the other children passed quickly and Mrs. White started teaching history. 

Over the next few weeks, she revisited the solar system each day during science and covered a new planet. When she passed out quizzes, many of the children received decent scores but Sherlock always consistently got the same questions wrong. He seemed to forget that the planets revolved around the sun and what order they were in. Yet each time she pulled him aside, Sherlock assured her that he would remember for the test. Other than that, his grades were nearly perfect.

When the time came for the final test on the solar system, Mrs. White allowed the children an entire half hour to complete it. After all, there were a lot of questions and she wanted them to have an adequate time to think through them. Sherlock was finished first, of course, but that was no surprise. When he bothered to actually work on the tests rather than just scribble answers in towards the end of the time, he was always the first to finish. Grading the paper showed that Sherlock had answered with his usual brilliance yet still got the question of revolving around the sun wrong. He’d put “round and round the garden, like a teddy bear” as an answer and Mrs. White had had to work to contain the snort of laughter. After all the tests were turned in, she pulled Sherlock aside during recess and asked him about it.

“It really makes no difference to me,” Sherlock explained, shrugging. “Whether the earth goes around the sun or round and round the garden like a teddy bear isn’t important. I need the room in my memory for important things, for solving mysteries.”

“Like the composition of Saturn’s rings?” Mrs. White asked, amused.

“Yes,” Sherlock nodded, pleased that she seemed to understand. “It’s made of ice, which also shows up here on Earth. It’s interesting to me. And if I know how ice works in other places, it can help me understand how ice might factor into solving a murder or other case like that.”

“And you want to solve murders? Be a detective inspector?” she continued. “That sounds like an interesting career. But you’re still young, Sherlock. There are other paths out there, too.”

“No, I don’t want to be a detective inspector,” Sherlock disagreed, shaking his head. “They have to deal with rules and things. I just want to be a detective. The best in the world. I don’t think what the Earth revolves around will have an effect on that.”

Mrs. White could only shake her head and let Sherlock walk to his desk. There, the boy read through a book about bees. At least, she thought it was about bees to go by the image on the cover. Well, they were through with the solar system section and he’d gotten perfect scores on everything else. Perhaps she could let this slide. After all, she’d never been able to change Sherlock’s mind about anything before this. Mrs. White smiled to herself and went back to her lesson plan. They were moving on to geology in the science section and she had a feeling Sherlock would find it interesting.


End file.
